The founders came up with the idea of running Twitter while… chatting on top of a slide at one of San Francisco’s playgrounds. That basic idea evolved into one of the most successful social media platforms (despite its ups and downs, pros and cons).

2. Twitter has loads of shortcuts that make searching easier

It’s relatively easy to search with hashtags or to find a particular person on Twitter. But did you know about all the shortcuts you can use to make ANY search easier? Check these out:

-> Looking for a phrase: social media? Put it in quotes: “social media”

-> Searching for tweets containing two phrases? Use AND/OR,  example: “Hillary AND Trump” searches for two words while “Hillary OR Trump” searches for either.

-> Want to exclude something? Use a minus, example: Oscar -selfie

-> Want to find tweets from a particular person? Use from:, example: from:sotrender

-> Want to find tweets sent to a particular person? Use to:, example: to:sotrender

-> Want to search for tweets from a specific area? Use near:, example: sotrender near:warsaw

-> Want to search between specific dates? Use since: and until:, example: sotrender since:2016-11-11 until:2016-11-20

-> Want to search for tweets with only links? Use filter:links, example: sotrender filter:links

3. Top or All?

Twitter shows you only the Top Tweets regarding the topic you were searching for for. To see all tweets, enable “All” at the top of the page. You’d be surprised what great content Twitter helps hide from you.

4. Oh no, 140 digits only…

But you can easily beat it with… screenshots. Just put some text into a picture and paste it to your post. Don’t do it too often though! It’s a smart technique, but it’s better to take care of the quality of your news feed. Also Twitter is meant to be short & direct, so if you get around it by writing an essay in a picture, then you will annoy people if you do it a lot.

5. Deep analytics help you perform better

Did you know that Twitter provides you with some statistic? One of Sotrender’s features is analyzing your Twitter presence – so you can use our tool to find out what is the best for your performance and how you’re doing on Twitter in general.

6. You can use Siri for tweeting!

It’s enough to tell Siri “Send a tweet, ” say what you want to tweet (including hashtags!), and confirm before sending. Have you ever tried it?

7. You can have all your tweets in one place

You can request the entire archive of your tweets by taking a few simple steps. This feature is available in your settings, but don’t expect to get your archive immediately – you’ll probably need to wait a few days to let Twitter process your request.

8. Find out about the potential of lists

Following a few thousand people can prove troublesome – but thanks to Twitter Lists, you can organize people you follow into lists – both private or public. It also works if you want to know if you’re on anyone else’s list – you can see who’s lists you are “member” of.

9. If you thought you can only upload one image to each tweet…

… You’re wrong. You can upload up to 4 photos, but there is no need to overuse it. However, this feature is great for product launches, special deals and offers, or great infographics.

10. If you connect hashtags with Twitter…

…you’re right, but it’s not Twitter who discovered the power of #. It dates back to IRC – one of the very first chats used in the late 80s and 90s, where hashtags were used by people to communicate and to categorize content.

11. It’s one of the quickest platform for getting information and… complaining

Your flight is delayed? You’re stuck in traffic? You can’t watch the game on TV? Go on Twitter. Your complaints will be read and answered there quickly and conveniently. And in the meantime you can follow whole news streams concerning the latest events. No more phone calling. The average time of reaction takes 1h 24mins, but in case of e.g. airlines or banks, it can take just a few seconds. You can take a look at more specific statistics on this matter HERE. How fast you react really matters on Twitter – not only for brands. It’s essential to react quickly or you may be forgotten.

Biggest UK’s Twitter profiles in ‘Telecommunications’ category. Source: Twitter Trends UK report, October 2016. 

12. World War II on Twitter

@RealTimeWWII is an account run by Oxford history graduate Alwyn Collinson and is all about manually narrating World War II. Who would even think about using Twitter like this? Alwyn, that’s who. It’s also worth noting that @everyword is aiming to share EVERY word in the English language. They began in 2007 and was completed in 2014!

13. What was the most shared tweet ever?

This prestigious crown was held for a long time by Barack Obama – his victory tweet was retweeted more than 800K times – let alone likes and comments. Then 2014 came and Bradley Cooper published the famous Oscar-Selfie Tweet from the awards show. It has been retweeted almost 3, 4 million times to date.

If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) 3 March 2014

14. Twitter could have been called “Friendstalker”

No kidding here. One of the founders had this name in mind (and no one can be sure it wasn’t only tongue-in-cheek), but when making the final decision they thought it was “not the best” choice. Now we can only be thankful and wonder if Twitter would be used by journalists and politicians so much if it was called “Friendstalker”?

15. Who is the average Twitter user?

Those 3 statistics can describe them: 208 followers, 21 minutes spent on Twitter per month, tweeted 307 times.

16. The most followed brand on Twitter…

…is not Twitter. It’s @YouTube with more than 65 million followers!

17. Are you Twitterpatted?

Yes, that is a word (more like disease) that people use. Co-founder, Jack Dorsey, says the word describes being “overwhelmed with information or just so excited that you forget to tweet or forget to share.”

18. Billions, billions

It took more than 3 years to get to the first billionth tweet. Now it only takes a week.  

19. The most tweeted Emoji is “Tears of Joy”.

It doesn’t come as a surprise as it was the “Word of the Year 2015”, and it was included in nearly 15 billion tweets to date.

20. There are 10 million Twitter users in China (Nov 2016)

Even though the social media platform is blocked in this country.

There are loads of interesting facts concerning Twitter. Maybe you know some more of them and would like to share them with us? The comment section is all yours. 🙂